Not all readers of this essayletter may be aware of it, but a tempest has been brewing in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a tempest created by the liberal party in that denomination. It came about this way.

In January 2002, a Pastor's Conference on covenant theology was held at the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (AAPC). The lectures presented at this conference were calls to return to historic Reformational teachings on the covenant. The men who presented lectures did not agree with one another on all points, including some significant ones (such as admission to the Lord's Table by baptism alone: "paedocommunion"). The conference was entitled "The Federal Vision" (FV) to indicate that the topic was the covenant.

This Conference was a conversation.

A conversation for grown-ups.

Shortly after this Conference was held, a condemnation of it was issued by a small group of self-proclaimed "Southern Presbyterians" headed up by Joseph Morecraft of Dunwoody, Georgia. This condemnation linked the AAPC discussion of the covenant with the so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and its best-known evangelical advocate, the Anglican N. Thomas Wright. I gather that this was an attempt at guilt-by-association, since a palpable hatred of "liturgical" (i.e., Reformation-style) worship seems to characterize the group that is gathered around Morecraft.

For some reason mysterious to me, the association of the FV speakers with the NPP has stuck, even though there are no grounds for it. Those of us being called FV have been discussing these issues for 25 years, long before any of us had ever heard of Tom Wright.